Aachen 2019 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 62: Neutrino-Astronomie II

T 62.6: Talk

Wednesday, March 27, 2019, 17:20–17:35, S14

Observation of the cosmic-ray moon shadow using the IceCube Neutrino Observatory — •Saskia Philippen, Christian Haack, René Reimann, Marius Wallraff, and Christopher Wiebusch for the IceCube collaboration — III. Physikalisches Institut B, Physikzentrum RWTH Aachen, Otto-Blumenthal-Straße, 52074 Aachen

Calibrating the directional reconstruction of neutrino-induced muons in IceCube is a challenging task. As no luminous neutrino source exists in the sky, pointing and resolution are often estimated by Monte-Carlo methods. Experimentally, IceCube uses cosmic-ray-induced atmospheric muons for various calibration purposes. Particularly useful is the effect that cosmic rays are absorbed by the moon, resulting in a deficit of cosmic-ray muons from the lunar direction. This "Moon Shadow" finds application in the verification of the angular resolution and pointing. By combining multiple years of observation a high-statistics data sample is obtained. In addition to the verification of existing reconstruction methods, the contrast of the shadow will be employed to optimize the reconstructions.